NBC In Warsaw Uprising Gaffe

22.08.2013 – The American NBC broadcaster has mistakenly described a new documentary film on the 1944 Warsaw Rising against occupying Nazis as being about the 1943 Jewish Ghetto Uprising.

The NBC web site published a trailer of a forthcoming film that threads together archival footage from the Warsaw Rising, an insurgency led by the Polish underground Home Army (AK).

In the introduction to the article, using a link to a report by British television station ITV, NBC states that, “the Warsaw ghetto uprising of 1944 has been brought to life in a riveting new film.”

The ghetto uprising was, in fact, in 1943.

The documentary entitled Warsaw Rising, uses modern technology to add colour to black and white footage.

The original footage was recorded by Poland’s underground state, which operated under the auspices of the Polish government-in-exile in London.

Jan Komasa, who is also working on a separate feature film about the Warsaw Rising called Miasta 44 (City 44) directed the project.

The Warsaw Rising of 1944, which ended in capitulation after two months in October of that year, followed the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising some months later in the final days before the German Nazis withdrew from the Polish capital and Soviet troops took their place.

The Warsaw Ghetto Rising broke out in April 1943, led by partisan forces the Jewish Combat Organisation (ZOB) and the Jewish Military Union (ZZW). The insurgency was crushed by 19 May. (nh/pg)